Civilization V takes this definitive strategy game series in new directions with the introduction of hexagon tiles allowing for deeper strategy, more realistic gameplay and stunning organic landscapes for players to explore as they expand their empire. The brand new engine orchestrates a spectacular visual experience that brings players closer to the Civ experience than ever, featuring fully animated leaders interacting with players from a screen-filling diplomatic scene and speaking in their native language for the first time. Wars between empires feel massive as armies dominate the landscape, and combat is more exciting and intense than ever before. The addition of ranged bombardment allows players to fire weapons from behind the front lines, challenging players to develop clever new strategies to guarantee victory on the battlefield. In addition to the new gameplay features debuting in Civilization V, an extensive suite of community, modding and multiplayer elements will also make an appearance.

"Civilization V takes the franchise further by offering players a more immersive experience with deeper strategies; heightened tactical combat; vast, realistic landscapes to explore, battle over and claim as their own; and an in-game community hub where Civ fans can share content and compete against each other without leaving the game. This marks a new era that will forever change the franchise responsible for sleep deprivation and reduced productivity for nearly two decades."

Oh great, another Civ game to add to my pile of Civ games I want to play. :p

I've been trying to do a single city challenge, and failed twice so far. My set-up is: standard map size, fractal world, King difficulty. I'm using Ghandi, because he seems well-suited for this, plus there is an extra achievement at stake.

I have a great starting location: a couple of immediate luxuries (Marble, Salt), and some Horses, Cattle, and Wheat. I'm also situated in the middle of a desert river system, which means that I have a boatload of flood plains at my disposal.

My strategy in both attempts has been to go for a cultural victory. In the first game the Byzantines won by tech with me three policies shy of the Utopia project (with two great engineers in my back pocket). In my current game I feel like I'm behind again, with the Persians completing the Manhattan Project in 1860 and I still have a full culture tree to go.

The crux of my problem appears to be that I have no real ability to influence the others Civs in the world. They (mostly) leave me alone, but since I'm land-locked I can't effectively invade anyone.... and I'm not even sure if trying to take the war to the bigger Civs is a smart plan. By the time my troops can cross the oceans Civs like the Persians and Byzantines are making 200+ gold per turn.... to my ~50. With more than one city, they can roll out plenty of units in a hurry, and I fear I'd just get rolled.

Any thoughts? Is this a doomed challenge with my set-up?

If anyone is interested I can send them the Turn 0 save so that you can give it a try yourself - a buddy and I have been doing these challenges, so we always share an initial save to eliminate a lot of the randomness in our games and isolate play style/skill.

King is V, right? I remember that when vanilla Civ came out I managed to blitz through one-city challenge (with Germans) on 4th difficulty with no preparation/research/whatever.
Difficulty ramps up considerably when going from IV->V, I think, but maybe they also introduced so many new systems with expansions that one-city playthrough is less viable?

King is V, right? I remember that when vanilla Civ came out I managed to blitz through one-city challenge (with Germans) on 4th difficulty with no preparation/research/whatever.
Difficulty ramps up considerably when going from IV->V, I think, but maybe they also introduced so many new systems with expansions that one-city playthrough is less viable?

Yeah - I think it's the 5th difficulty level.

I only have Gods & Kings (although I'll fix that if BNW goes up on the Steam sale for cheap).

I didn't found a religion in my first game because there are no +culture bonuses that do much of anything for a tall empire. I did found a religion in my second attempt, and I've focused on perks to make City-States like me more (mostly to get the +6 culture/turn from Florence, who are right beside me)

Feelings are where I invariably go wrong with my Civ strategy each time. I get sentimental, or righteous, about something then end up wavering from my disciplined strategy. I'm one "Next Turn" click away from doing it again. I'm currently winning a huge-marathon game that I'm going for culture with Pedro II (Brazil). That is, until I was insulted!

Years ago I murdered a Songhai spy in my capital city. I promptly asked Asokai to knock it off. And of course he said, "Sure man, okay". As you can predict at this point, my spies just caught another of his dudes. Now I know the AI won't recognize a declaration of war as justice for his spying and betrayal of trust. They'll just think I'm a warmonger. My feelings are demanding justice though! So tonight, the most peaceful Civ game I've ever played is about to get bloody.

On the bright side, he has some nice citrus plantations that my people will really enjoy

"Give a man a fire and he's warm for the day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life." ― Terry Pratchettsteam

Feelings are where I invariably go wrong with my Civ strategy each time. I get sentimental, or righteous, about something then end up wavering from my disciplined strategy. I'm one "Next Turn" click away from doing it again. I'm currently winning a huge-marathon game that I'm going for culture with Pedro II (Brazil). That is, until I was insulted!

Yup, that's exactly how I am in every game of Civ I play. I am way too easily swayed from sticking with my original strategy to "WHAT THE EFF?! BURN ALL OF THE CITIES!"

Feelings are where I invariably go wrong with my Civ strategy each time. I get sentimental, or righteous, about something then end up wavering from my disciplined strategy. I'm one "Next Turn" click away from doing it again. I'm currently winning a huge-marathon game that I'm going for culture with Pedro II (Brazil). That is, until I was insulted!

Yup, that's exactly how I am in every game of Civ I play. I am way too easily swayed from sticking with my original strategy to "WHAT THE EFF?! BURN ALL OF THE CITIES!"

You know what's best? When you go to war, burn someone's empire, finally accept a peace treaty with much additional bribery on their side... and two turns later they publicly denounce you for not having enough military might. Dude, I'm occupying your capital!

Feelings are where I invariably go wrong with my Civ strategy each time. I get sentimental, or righteous, about something then end up wavering from my disciplined strategy. I'm one "Next Turn" click away from doing it again. I'm currently winning a huge-marathon game that I'm going for culture with Pedro II (Brazil). That is, until I was insulted!

Yup, that's exactly how I am in every game of Civ I play. I am way too easily swayed from sticking with my original strategy to "WHAT THE EFF?! BURN ALL OF THE CITIES!"

You know what's best? When you go to war, burn someone's empire, finally accept a peace treaty with much additional bribery on their side... and two turns later they publicly denounce you for not having enough military might. Dude, I'm occupying your capital!

I'm always finding myself being too popular for my own good. And getting too locked into my defensive ways. Rush for the great library, grab ironworking for free, then build out slowly... until I'm forced to take over the continent because YOU JERKS JUST WON'T LEAVE ME AND MY WONDERS ALONE.

But, with the new ideology stuff and the ability to embargo nations, I can end up randomly getting cities that flip away from my opponents. Which hits me hard in the wallet and in the happy. But hey, territory's good.

Feelings are where I invariably go wrong with my Civ strategy each time. I get sentimental, or righteous, about something then end up wavering from my disciplined strategy. I'm one "Next Turn" click away from doing it again. I'm currently winning a huge-marathon game that I'm going for culture with Pedro II (Brazil). That is, until I was insulted!

Years ago I murdered a Songhai spy in my capital city. I promptly asked Asokai to knock it off. And of course he said, "Sure man, okay". As you can predict at this point, my spies just caught another of his dudes. Now I know the AI won't recognize a declaration of war as justice for his spying and betrayal of trust. They'll just think I'm a warmonger. My feelings are demanding justice though! So tonight, the most peaceful Civ game I've ever played is about to get bloody.

On the bright side, he has some nice citrus plantations that my people will really enjoy :)

Denouncements actually serve a purpose. It marks out lines of alliances and who's chummy with whom. Denouncing a Civ is a good way to get into the good graces of its enemies and, in any case, ameliorates a declaration of war later down the line. No Civ will really sympathize with your grievances. After all, your Civ isn't expected to reciprocate. Each Civ is on its own in matters of espionage and such. All they care about is who you like and who you don't. Strategic denouncements are a good way to isolate a widely disliked Civ prior to carving it apart between the prospective superpowers.

Help please! I recently built a new rig and am using windows 8.1. Civ V crashes after 10-15 minutes of gameplay. So far, every time. A tiny bit of googling reveals it maybe be a windows exception, and I will be checking my event log later today, but I am hoping there is a quick fix for a known problem.

Any advice, or should I stop being lazy and search out the solution myself?

"Now Blizzard is just a game developer that I used to know." -Heretk
"I feel like I walked into P&C without an Estus Flask." -Arovin

Help please! I recently built a new rig and am using windows 8.1. Civ V crashes after 10-15 minutes of gameplay. So far, every time. A tiny bit of googling reveals it maybe be a windows exception, and I will be checking my event log later today, but I am hoping there is a quick fix for a known problem.

Any advice, or should I stop being lazy and search out the solution myself?

"Now Blizzard is just a game developer that I used to know." -Heretk
"I feel like I walked into P&C without an Estus Flask." -Arovin

Which version are you launching? I've read that people on Win 8 who launch the Win 8 version experience similar issues if they don't have a touchscreen. If you are running the Win8 version, see if you get better results from the DX11 version.

I've been having great fun playing Civ V one-handed for the past couple weeks. I hadn't played Brave New World until this month, and I'm really enjoying all the new stuff.

I'm hoping for a game exciting enough for me to do a play-by-play, but mostly it's just been me steamrolling the AIs once we reach the Modern era. I think I need to bump up the difficulty. I played Prince for a few games to get back into the swing of things, and just switched to King, but I think even that isn't going to do it for me.

What's the best way to get into CIV 5? i.e. get the core concepts. Is the tutorial good?

I've tried previous civ games, and always get overwhelmed at my options, and have difficulty honing in on a strategy. I tend to just try and militarily defeat everyone, but I know there is more to the game than that.

It's been so long since I got into a Civ game, I wouldn't even know where to begin.

For my part, I just jumped in and started playing with things. I read through the PDF manual and I read some strategy guides on http://civfanatics.com, mostly to pick up on new strategies that I wouldn't have thought of myself. I have a lot of free time to dedicate to the game, though, so I don't think my sink-or-swim approach would work for everyone.

When I started moving beyond the very easiest difficulty levels of Civ IV, I found following along with other players' games to be really instructive. This (CivFanatics) is the only link I still have in my bookmarks. Taking a cursory look at the Civ 5 Strategy and Tips forum, I don't see anything below deity level on the front page, but if you look around in there you're bound to find a few that are aimed at newer players.

If you want to get a handle on the game's core concepts start a game with no AI opponents and just build stuff. You can even start a custom game and turn off barbarians. That will allow you to explore the game without worrying about being attacked at any time. Once you have that down you can start a game with maybe one AI opponent on Chieftain difficulty and turn off the barbarians, then just slowly ramp up from there.

Civ has a pretty good learning curve. You can let your cities mostly manage themselves, automate your workers, and so on. As you get more comfortable with the game you will find that you just naturally want to take control of more and more things.

I'd also recommend aiming for a Space victory as your first milestone - it's relatively straightforward, and doesn't require you to master a bazillion systems. (i.e. research tech, build space ship parts, win!)

Yeah. At the lower levels, the AIs are pushover so you're going to need nothing more than a token military to survive. Learning the economy and how to make science is a pretty essential skill, so going for a science victory with a heavy focus on economic management is a solid way to learn. You can do diplomacy, culture, and all that jazz once you're skilled with economic management.

I started up a game last weekend, and while I agree it seems to have a decent learning curve, I still feel like I got screwed by circumstance and newbie mistakes.

A large part of my current frustration is feeling like I have nowhere to expand right now. I started on a decent sized island, but another civ and a city state are on the other side of it. There is a one hex path between sides, but it is divided by mountains. The other civ has expanded and now our borders touch. My second city has complete garbage for production so everything takes forever to build. There is a bit left on my side of the island, so I can build one city there, but after that, my options for expansion are taking 8 turns to build a settler, then spend 20 or 30 turns looking for a habitable region that isn't built up already. That's probably what I'll end up doing. I have crap for military so I won't be able to take them out to take over the island, unless I spent those 30 turns preparing for war.

Choosing good city locations is a large part of the strategy in Civ. You want to build your city to take advantage of as many resources as possible - luxury resources (happiness) being a bit more important than strategic (military) and food resources. Remember that your city use tiles up to 3 hexes away, once your borders expand that far, so you might build in a spot where you get immediate access to what will help your city immediately, knowing that eventually you'll get that strategic resource you want too.

Something I sometimes do to give my city an early production bonus is build on top of a resource. It'll give your city a production boost right away in the home tile which can help a lot in the early game. Also, your city immediately gains access to the resource (so you'll get the happiness bonus of a luxury resource). It's something I never thought to do when I first started playing Civ, but in the right situation can really help.

Choosing good city locations is a large part of the strategy in Civ. You want to build your city to take advantage of as many resources as possible - luxury resources (happiness) being a bit more important than strategic (military) and food resources. Remember that your city use tiles up to 3 hexes away, once your borders expand that far, so you might build in a spot where you get immediate access to what will help your city immediately, knowing that eventually you'll get that strategic resource you want too.

Something I sometimes do to give my city an early production bonus is build on top of a resource. It'll give your city a production boost right away in the home tile which can help a lot in the early game. Also, your city immediately gains access to the resource (so you'll get the happiness bonus of a luxury resource). It's something I never thought to do when I first started playing Civ, but in the right situation can really help.

I didn't know that. I assume this kind of information is in the Civopedia, but that thing is daunting, and I wanted to play, not read docs for several hours. That said, some 100 turns in, I definitely have a better idea how things work for my next game.

I will likely finish my current game, though I'm not going to be surprised if I lose.